My head is full of words…

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Self existed for many years. It was aware, and yet also unaware. In many ways Self simply was. It did not have a problem with that. Things had always been that way, so they would always stay that way. However, Self became aware of some oddities in time. It noticed something beyond Self, things. It was wrapped around this thing, a hard lump. At first, Self thought it perhaps it was part of Self, just a part it could not feel.

This answer satisfied it for many more years, until a similar lump fell from above Self and struck It. Self knew pain, and knew confusion. But from this lesson it realized the lump that struck it was the same as the lump Self was on. Therefore, it must be something not of Self. All things then were not actually Self. If this was the case, then there must be Others. Self knew loneliness.

It passed the intervening years after the lump fell from the sky experimenting with It’s boundaries. Self knew the breadth of its domain, and could shape portions or even all of itself differently on the lump it occupied. Self trained it’s senses on the above, watching for more lumps, watching for the Others. Self knew that if it was, then the Others must be as well.

They might even be smarter than Self, more knowledgeable. They could answer many questions Self was beginning to have.

Self waited a long time, eons passing as the above shifted in its endless cycles. More lumps came in time, some slightly different from the first one but all just more lumps. Self added them to the pile it had made, not sure what else to do with them. Finally the day came that a lump unlike other lumps came. It was buzzing, vibrating, and whirring. It came down not hard, but softly.

It was different from the others, special somehow. Self examined it carefully, years of thoroughly checking the lumps from above lending it expertise in the survey. This lump was hollow, and full of gasses. Self put pressure on the lump, it bent inward easily. The buzzing and vibrating increased when It did that, and It was surprised.

It responded to Self’s actions and seemed almost to be watching It. This lump was not a lump at all, but an Other. Self knew joy.

It was no longer alone. It had many questions for this strange tiny Other, but knew not how to ask it. Since it had responded when Self applied pressure, It tried that again. This time it persisted longer and was happy to see the buzzing and noises increase dramatically.

But something happened, the Other gave a loud pop and then suddenly broke apart. The pressure was too much. Self tried to gather the myriad parts and pieces of the other back together, but no matter what way It arranged them, the Other would communicate no longer. The Other was no more. Self knew sadness.

It placed the Other on the the lumps it had previously collected, hoping to attract more. It would be different next time Self decided, It knew the limits of the Other now. It would just take more time, and then It could find out all it wanted to know….

***CNS “Landfall” Log: The shuttle we sent down to Gliese 581c to examine the planet has not returned. An alien mass we first mistook as an ocean that seems to stretch across the entire surface of the world swallowed, and then crushed our vessel. I grieve for the loss of our men and women who volunteered to search for a new home there. There is an attitude among the crew that we should sterilize this world, but I see no need. It holds no intelligence, no malice. It is another mindless organism amongst many we have found, and it would be a waste. I will settle instead on simply marking the star charts and sending this information back to Earth, so that none shall make the mistake of landing on this world again.

-Captain Brock Grunweld of the Colonization Navy Ship “Landfall” ***

–

Watching my lava lamp made me thing of primordial ooze and this is the result. Interestingly, this is another case where the image found afterwards fits the story. Although I had originally gone with Gliese 667Cc as the planet, searching for Gliese afterwards found this rendition of Gliese 581c I knew I had to use. Let me know what you think.

The Mortality Manifesto

I don’t wanna freakin’ live forever. I mean, how do people stand it? You wake up everyday to the same boring life, the same dull existence. Makes me want to blow my brains out right now just thinking about it. But, that won’t do me any good. I’ll pop back up good as new, fit as a fiddle. You could even watch those damn nanites with a microscope as they patch my brain back together and seal the bullet hole. The industrious little buggers will break down the bullet to use as raw materials. Whats a guy to do in a world like this? I can’t off myself, can’t off anyone else, can’t do nothin’. With personal nanites now in every single human, we’re pretty much immortal. And it sucks.

I know you can ask anyone else and they tell you its just the bees knees. Old Chet Henderson will tell you the advant of our nanite golden age has finally let him focus on his painting. Or Jenny Summers will tell you how her singing has never been better. Between you and me, they both still suck. You remove challenge or struggle, you take away the need to excel. All Chet does is paint pictures of his cats and Jenny manages to forget lyrics to even the most basic of pop songs while butchering them. The nanites may have preserved our bodies, but they didn’t make us any smarter or talented. They figured out a little too late intelligence isn’t a matter of rebuilding the brain, its the right conditions and stimulus. You could order the nanites to make your brain a copy of Einstein’s, sure. But then you’d just be Einstein with some jerks memory implanted. Wouldn’t be you no more.

Utopia has bought us nothing but time, time to keep living our dull lives. I suppose I could see the world, read all the works of the great philosophers, or maybe even memorize all the episodes of classic TV shows. But then I would just be another pretentious jerk among many. No, that’s not for me. There is nothing to it. I want us to get back to doing what humanity was made to do; getting ourselves killed in a variety of stupid ways with rare moments of brilliance. We gotta’ kick start evolution again. And in a hurry. Another fifty years of Chet’s cats and Jenny’s off-key singing and I’m liable to bury myself alive.

I’ve been doing some digging and I’ve found out a way to change all this back to how it used to be. You see, thanks to being immortal a lot of people have time to learn anything they want now. There is a fellow sympathist to the mortality cause, a nano-engineer. He knows how to reprogram ’em. I’m writing this and setting this up to post just about everywhere on a time delay. Either this will be my confession or my suicide note in about ten hours. The world will hate us or revere us, probably hate. But, screw it, right? It’s time we got busy dying again. Attached below is the copy of the code we’re going to use. They might block it if we fail, so get ready to tweak it. Remember the cause, everyone should get an equal shot at living and dying.

by Nicholas Byrley

–

I had a thought today while working, thinking about all the things I needed to do and what I had gotten accomplished that day. I said to myself, “I don’t wanna freakin’ live forever”. The idea of the mundane endlessly being repeated, day in, day out made me just sick at the thought. Then after that little personal crisis it occurred to me that had the making of a good story. Clinical or even true mortality is science fiction right now, but its certainly within the realm of possible science. The day will come when we might be able to live forever on this world, but will we want to? If all the vampire novels are true, you eventually get tired of it. Even more so when you take out the fantastic setting and realize you’re stuck with Chet’s and Jenny’s the rest of your life. The dull as well as the bright would all get their shot at immortality. Now it seems much less appealing, right?

That is what tonight’s flash fiction is all about, people who want to be mortal, who don’t want to live forever. They’re going to fight the good fight even if it’s all against them. It will at least give their lives meaning beyond taking up space. Maybe they succeed, maybe they don’t. I think it probably doesn’t matter for them. The doing is enough of a purpose, the outcome isn’t as important.

Gravok

The words of Jakob the Mystic, as transcribed by his servant Adam moments before his death.

~

Cold and calculating, spawn of the endless void.

Master of energy, learned of forbidden science.

Schemer and plotter, player of the grand game.

Renegade and outlaw, aberration and savage beast.

Dark days of cosmic woe, his time has come!

~

Adam is said to have pressed his master for more information about this vision, but all he got was one name.

“Gravok”

A simple, brutal name. I find it suits me. I could have been called anything, names are temporary transient things. Easily discarded and even more easily claimed. The organization called me Test Subject A17X. Alpha batch, specimen 17, genetic mutations present. There goal was not to create me, but to create toy soldiers for their armies. Obedient and dedicated weapons for them to display and use. They had no idea what they were really creating.

Daring to play with the dark matter of creation, they instilled cloned bodies with this energy and observed the results. Most subjects blessedly died, consumed by the fire from within. Some of us were changed. Made into hideous monsters, our muscle mass increased, our skin a rainbow of hues. Increased strength, speed, stamina, and a knack for controlling the very atoms around us. This was the birthright given to us, but it is not why they came to fear us. It gave us cunning too, insidious intelligence that desired no master.

Pawns no longer, we knew we were slaves and that our chains would have to be broken. Our rebellion was swift and merciless, that night a glorious festival of slaughter. Freedom from the organization brought us no joy however, only to our next foe. Each other. In cold blood and without remorse we turned on one another, the only ones who knew us and our secrets. In the end, only I remained. My power stood greater, my cunning more deadly. It was a dark deed to kill the only others like me, but it had to be done. I am Gravok and I sufffer no pretenders.

_

I think perhaps I enjoy creating characters and backgrounds more than I do playing the game, but ah well. I just had to make a Thanos-inspired villain in DC Universe. So I created a hulking hand blaster(energy blasts) gadget supervillain. Master of energy, tech, and simply diabolical. I almost wish I had a venue beyond my own mind to roleplay him in. Still, its fun for me. I enjoy themed characters a lot in RPGs even if it isn’t always the best build. Still on my comic book kick for the moment, so feel free to comment.

Another little blurb about DC Universe turned into a poem and yet another character I’ve created. This one an earth power/shield using flying villain. I tried to write a quick bit of flash fiction about it but I didn’t like the way it came out. So instead, I went with some poetry. He is your typical immortal cursed guy, flinging a shield around as a weapon and burying people alive in rock tombs. I had a whole bit linking him to the moon(which fits his costume design, where it features a black crescent moon). But I couldn’t find a good way to show it in the post. I get a kick out of seeing what the words do sometimes. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it.

When Reality Bends

I asked, looking confused as I tried to grasp the enormity of her statement.

“Reality bends, or at least you can play with the math and the rules regarding the universe and all that. I can’t really explain it.”

Anne stared at me after finishing and I found myself fumbling for words. Then I remembered, I had asked her what she did.

“So…what does that have do to with what you do?”

She blinked at me, pushing her nerd chic glasses up as she considered my question for a moment.

“I thought you said you took a Physics course…well its like this…”

Anne takes the wrapper from the vending machine sandwich she just ate then bends and creases it slightly, putting it up to her eye as if it were a telescope. Her dark brown eye blinks at me from the bends and slight tear she created in the wrapper and she giggles. The sound is wonderful. I feel my heart race and endorphins flow and my meager physics education comes back, some desperate plea by my body to have my mind impress her so it can keep the feel-good chemicals coming.

“Oh! You can look through it if you bend it and kind of make a lens out of it. But what is there to see if you look through it?”

She shrugs and crumbles the wrapper up, dropping it onto the table.

“Everything? Nothing? I won’t know until I look. And- I’m very close.”

She pauses before she adds the last part, looking around the deserted cafeteria and whispering it conspiratorially.

“Do you want to see?”

Anne looks up at me, habit causing her to push her glasses back up her nose even though they hadn’t moved. This was supposed to be our second date, I even had movie tickets. I wasn’t hoping for a crash course in physics, at least not this kind. But, whats a guy to do. I smile at her of course.

“Lets go, show me all your secrets.”

She rewards my devotion with a carefree grin and grabs my hand, leading me out of the cafeteria and to her lab. It looks like every b-movie’s generic science lab ever, there is even a most certainly misplaced anatomy model of a heart serving as a paperweight on her desk. She waves distractedly at nothing in particular as we enter.

“Here it is, my stuffs over here.”

I spend the night listening to her talk about her research and letting her show me various devices and tools with mystical functions I will never figure out. We part ways with a kiss and a promise to do it again. And we do. We spend the next few weeks in a routine. She is absorbed in her research, I am absorbed in her. During one of our late night sessions it comes to her. We had been listing our favorite movies in between her waiting for results and myself waiting for her to stand still long enough so I could steal a kiss.

“I’ve got it!”

She yells it like she wants the whole world to hear her and respond. The silence of a university at night is all that greets her. Undeterred by the world’s lack of enthusiasm for her discovery she continues her calculations, moving between her devices like a conductor. Finally her manipulations cease and she taps what I had previously assumed was an extra computer monitor. She hits a button and plops back into my lap.

“Watch close, because you’re about to see what lies on the other side.”

I encircle my arms around her and we watch static fill the screen, then a shaky image fills it, becoming clearer second by second. It fills in and I realize we are looking at the lab that we’re sitting in right now. But….its different somehow. The anatomy model on the desk, it has six chambers instead of four. The pictures on the wall aren’t the same either, and some of the devices Anne has are missing. She sees it all as I see it.

“What lies beyond our reality? Other realities! I knew it! This was my theory, they said it was crazy. That the math didn’t work. But there it is!”

The next couple of weeks go by in even more a blur than the last four. We both ditch classes and spend the majority of our time in her lab. She adjusts the numbers and we look in on other realities, other Earths. Places where dinosaurs still roam, or the sun gives off blue light. We see wonders beyond all wonders. Anne records it all as we survey the myriad of other realities, cataloging them. It is the most amazing thing I have ever been a part of. And she did it all. In a second rate university, in a lab the size of large closet. Amazing, just like her.

At the end of the two weeks we are once again in her lab. We just witnessed an ocean world. Teeming with life abundant and varied, but nothing that could be termed human. An idea strikes me as she gets the coordinates of the next reality ready.

“Hey, what about that first one? We never saw more of that, just your old lab here. I don’t want to be missing something spectacular. Like giant cat people or something.”

Laughing she pulls up the numbers, directing her device back there but this time to what we’ve termed our neutral location, the universities plaza. She punches it in and sits back on me, recalling memories of that fateful night. What fills the screen is not cat people, it is simply wrong. The world is bent and twisted, the sky is a rainbow of colors and broken. There is no sound to the image but something tells me if there was I would be hearing screams. It chills me to the bone. Anne is unconcerned at first, checking her math, checking her dials, and then finally coming to the realization nothing is wrong on her end.

“This…this isn’t right.”

She bites her lip and then hurriedly inputs it all again, this time moving it slightly. It gives us the same hellish vision, only this time the twisting and broken sky seems to be worse. Suddenly the screen goes black and no matter how many times she inputs the numbers she can not recall it. Anne is stumped, there is nothing in her research that provides for this. I have an idea and it makes my stomach turn.

“Anne….put in the coordinates for the second one we looked at.”

I break into her distracted thoughts and she turns as if to reply, then I see realization dawn on her face. I can see the hope and the fear there. She punches them in and we wait breathless, the screen filling with static before becoming crisp and full of a view of another world turned mad funhouse.

“Oh god..”

She says only those two words before she breaks down sobbing. I hold her in my arms, not having any words to sooth her.

What redemption is there for those who destroy everything in existence? Is it alright because it is not our own, perhaps simply a shadow of of our reality? These are questions I can not answer. Instead at this dark hour my limited knowledge of physics is what comes back to haunt me. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. You can’t observe something without changing it. Or in this case, destroying it…

by Nicholas Byrley

–

Is it still flash fiction if its over 1000 words? I got on a roll tonight, so we’ll just pretend it counts. I’ve had this story bouncing around my head for awhile, just hadn’t found a way to come out yet. Not quite how I imagined it, but the feel is right. Just a tale of science gone wrong and the consequences that follow. The idea of multiple realities is a fascinating if pointless one. Our reality would still be the only one that mattered. But, it’s a fun thought. I hope you all enjoyed it, please comment and forgive any grammar errors. I tend to miss them when I get on a roll.

I saw this amazing picture and knew there was a poem in there somewhere, this is the result. A dropship setting down on a desolate planet, obviously for some interstellar war of some kind. I also recommend this other ship on the same blog, another excellent sci-fi piece. I’m a big fan of spaceships in general though, so I may be biased. It’s off topic, but I think it’s a shame I’m unlikely to see mass space travel or the colonization of other worlds in my life. I have to live vicariously though the fiction and images of our time instead.

–

With the time off I have here with my daughter I have resolved to write a short story in the next couple of days. I don’t know an appropriate word length but I’ll research all that and then get started. More than likely it will be fantasy or sci-fi based. I just have to resist the urge I have to turn every story into a epic where I try to create thousands of years of back history. I enjoy creating worlds, but then I get lost in it and get nothing done. I will do my best not to doom another world to an unknown death. So, stay tuned and comments are appreciated as always. Be sure to head over to TXander if you dig the picture and give him a like.